Chapter 1
My Mom’s Big Nose
My name is A.J. and I hate asparagus.
Ha! I bet you were thinking I was going to say I hate school. But I didn’t. So nah-nah-nah boo-boo on you. That just goes to show that you shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched.
I really don’t know what that means, but my mom is always saying you shouldn’t count your chickens before they’re hatched. Nobody knows why. I wouldn’t want to count chickens even after they were hatched. Who wants to count chickens at all ? I’ve heard of people counting sheep, but never chickens. I don’t even know anybody who has chickens. Except for maybe the one we keep in the refrigerator for dinner. And it’s easy to count one chicken.
One.
See? You’re done counting. 1
Where was I?
Oh, yeah. You’ll never believe what happened to me a couple of weeks ago. I came home from school that Thursday and my mom said, “I have big news, A.J.!”
“Your nose isn’t that big,” I replied.
“Very funny,” my mom said. “The big news is that I’m going back to work.”
“WHAT?!”
Before my sister and I were born, Mom had a job. She worked in a restaurant. That was back in ancient times, when dinosaurs roamed the earth. My mom stopped working so she could take care of us. That’s not even like working at all because they don’t give you any money for taking care of your own kids. Besides, I figure I’m so much fun to be around that taking care of me isn’t even like work.
“I decided you kids are old enough now so that I can get a job again,” Mom told me, “and we could use some extra money around here.”
“What kind of a job?” I asked her. “Are you going to be a jet fighter pilot or a brain surgeon?”
Having your mom as a brain surgeon would be cool. On Take Your Child to Work Day, you could watch her open up people’s heads and look inside. That would be awesome!
“No,” she explained. “I’m starting a little catering company called The Six Moms. I’m teaming up with Andrea’s, Michael’s, Ryan’s, Emily’s, and Neil’s mothers.”
“Catering?” I asked. “What’s ‘catering’?”
“We’re going to make sandwiches and things like that for parties,” Mom said.
I slapped my head.
“Sandwiches?” I said. “People can make their own sandwiches. All you have to do is take a piece of bread and put stuff on it. Then you put another piece of bread on top of the stuff. Amazing! You made a sandwich!”
“We’re going to make fancy sandwiches,” my mom told me.
That made no sense, because all sandwiches go to the same place after you eat them.
“You should make something people need ,” I told her, “like a homework machine. Or something to spray on your skin so girls will stop bothering you.”
“A.J., the important thing is that my new job is going to affect you , too,” Mom told me.
“Me? What do I have to do with your job?”
“Well, I just signed you up for the after-school program,” Mom said.
WHAT?!
Chapter 2
Deal or No Deal
The after-school program?
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!
Not the after-school program! Anything but the after-school program!
It’s bad enough that I have to go to school for a million hundred hours during the day. Now I’d have to go to school after school is over !
I thought I was gonna die. This was the worst thing to happen to me since TV Turnoff Week. My life was finished.
“Can’t you just poke my eyeballs out instead of sending me to the after-school program?” I asked my mom. “That would be more fun.”
“The after-school program will be fun, A.J.!” she told me. “You’ll get to play games, sing songs, make projects, and be with your friends. That’s got to be better than sitting around the house watching TV after school.”
“I like sitting around the house watching TV after school!” I told her. “What could be better than sitting around the house watching TV?”
No matter what I said, I couldn’t talk her out of
Marjorie M. Liu
Desmond Haas
Cathy McDavid
Joann Ross
Jennifer Carson
Elizabeth Miller
Christopher Pike
Sarah Lark
Kate Harrison